Lindholm Oil Company Service Station

Having designed a gas station as part of his Broadacre City project in the 1930s, Wright approached Best Oil company owner, Ray Lindholm, a former client, with the idea of building a gas station in his hometown of Cloquet, MN.

Built

1956

Client

Ray W. Lindholm

Address

State Highway 33 and State Highway 45

Status

National Register of Historic Places. Still in the Lindholm family, it is now a Spur gas station.

The Lindholm Service Station turned out to be the only part of Wright’s visionary Broadacre City project that made it into the landscape of reality. Despite remaining largely un-implemented, Wright’s utopian plan for America foreshadowed post-war decentralization trends. The service station, in Wright’s words, would be “the future city in embryo,” which would “naturally grow into a neighborhood distribution center, meeting-place, restaurant … or whatever else is needed.” The gas pumps were originally designed to hang overhead, but were ultimately changed to meet safety regulations. Nevertheless, Wright’s unusual design for the station—with its cantilevered copper roof, upper-level glass observation lounge and sky-lit service bays—set a new pump record for the company.

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